This project provides a descriptive overview of the Latin American and Caribbean household in light of recent debates over household complexity, rules of household formation, and individual characteristics and household type around the world. Few censuses yet provide measures that enable an adequate comparison of household complexity within and between Latin America and other regions of the world. Direct information on household structure is rarer still, as are cross-classifications necessary for a study of the household and the lifecycle. Finally, questions about the relation between number of children and household type must be investigated on the micro level. The World Fertility Survey collected basic household and socio-demographic information from nationally-representative samples of household in eleven Latin American and Caribbean countries prior to selecting the ultimate samples of women of childbearing age for the detailed fertility survey (Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republican, Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela). These data, which can be linked to the fertility data, provide a unique opportunity for conducting a comparative study of households in Latin America and the Caribbean.